Mummy Cake January 8, 2009

I have only done one cake between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  I was supposed to do a cake this week but it got postponed which left me time to make a cake for a friend’s birthday. 

I have been wanting to try another of Sarah-Jane’s designs for awhile, a mummy cake.  It is one of her designs that she does for weddings.

I learned that I really need to work on my hand strength, but I can’t wait to try this cake again.

I also tried something new, I made strawberry buttercream instead of my regular vanilla.  The cake is also strawberry with strawberry filling.  The buttercream is very lightly flavored so it isn’t very strong.  Hopefully it isn’t too much strawberry, I’ll know later tonight.  Click on the pictures to enlarge them.

In other news I am going to my first ICES meeting later this month.  The woman I spoke with was quite friendly and excited to have a new member.  There will be a demonstration/workshop on making a teacup and saucer out of fondant.  The woman teaching the class has amazing cakes, I am looking forward to a real lesson from an actual professional.

My son’s 1st birthday November 24, 2008

Yes, I spent way too much time on this cake, but my son only turns one once.  The characters are all fondant.  The cake is buttermilk devil’s food, iced in white chocolate cream cheese icing.  The cupcakes are Funfetti with buttercream.  The kids loved the cupcakes and the adults loved the cake!

Cappuccino Icing September 8, 2008

I use a modified version of the Wilton recipe for my buttercream.

For medium consistency:

Cream together: 3 sticks butter, 1/2 c. shortening, 1 Tbsp. vanilla, 2 Tbsp. water

Slowly mix in 2 pounds Dominos brand 10x confectioners sugar

For the cappuccino icing, I added 4 scoops of instant cappuccino mix.  I also added a little more water to make it creamy enough to spread but I’m not sure how much extra I added.

This will made enough to ice and decorate a double layer 10″ cake.

11 Minute cake September 7, 2008

Here is the picture I promised:

Normally I send my practice cakes to the Ronald McDonald House, but the week before I had promised my husband a cake for work.  I had planned to make a cake celebrating the first football game of the season, but it turned out horrible.  I didn’t take a single picture for fear it would end up on cake wrecks.

So when I made the cake above, I sent it with him.  I mixed instant cappuccino mix into the icing and it was delicious!

When Matt got to work, he dropped the entire cake upside down in the parking lot!  It smashed everything, but it still looked OK, according to him.  He stuck it in the kitchen along with a note explaining it was dropped and to eat at your own risk.  It was gone by 10:30!  People were coming from other floors to get a piece.  I guess I’ll be making that icing again.

I had made some lowfat brownies awhile back and since then one lady in the office has thought all my desserts, including the one above were low calorie.  She was really disappointed to learn that none of them were.

Here is another practice cake I made recently:

My sister has a degree in photography and is trying to teach me from across the country how to take better pictures.  I am having trouble not using my flash, but the colors do turn out better.  I guess I need to read the owner’s manual for our camera.

Recent Projects August 14, 2008

One of my friends is relocating temporarily.  These are sugar cookies I made for the trip to her new home.  I cut out fondant shapes using the same cookie cutters as I used for the cookies.  When the cookies came out of the oven, I placed the fondant on the cookies while they were still warm.  I used buttercream for the accents.  I decorated them while my son hung on my leg, so the lines didn’t turn out very straight.  I was also in a hurry so I didn’t bother redoing them.

This was a chocolate cheesecake.  I used cookie cutters to cut out the shapes for my husband on our anniversary.  The cheesecake was a lot thicker than my cutters, which had a ridge, so I ended up using a knife to finish cutting the cheesecake.  It worked OK, but the edges came out crumbly.  Next time I’ll have to try a different method.

Flower cupcakes July 30, 2008

With the cupcakes leftover from yesterday, I made some flower cupcakes.  My original idea was a 5 petal flower but it didn’t work and I couldn’t find the place where I originally saw it.  My second idea was a giant rose using the cupcake as the flower nail.  Something was weird about my icing though so the edges of the petals were really jagged.  This would have been fine if it was just part of a petal, but it was all the edges.  Plan ‘C’ was the rosebuds.  I admit, they need some work but I was tired and in a hurry because nap time for the kids was almost over.  The rest of the flowers were chrysanthemums, the idea stolen from this you tube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9qtZwHHmx4.  These actually turned out pretty well in my opinion.

Beagle Cupcake July 29, 2008

I made these for a friend’s daughter.  The dog is supposed to be their beagle mix.  I followed the pattern in Hello, cupcake!

The cupcakes are devil’s food with chocolate buttercream icing.

Froggy Cake July 22, 2008

Our church does quite a bit of volunteer work for the Ronald McDonald House in our area.  In order to practice my cakes, and not gain 100 pounds, I decided to see if I could donate practice cakes to them.  Lucky for me, they said yes, and I can just drop them off any time.  It works out perfect considering with 2 babies I have no idea when I’ll have a moment to make a cake and deliver it.

Today I made a cake inspired by my son’s bath towel:

I had some cupcakes in the freezer so I used the remaining icing to decorate them too.  They turned out pretty well, I wish the stripes on the cake were a little narrower, but I didn’t have a good way to cut them handy.  When I made the buttercream, I substituted lemon juice for the vanilla.  The hint of lemon is so slight that if I try it again, I’ll use lemon juice for all the liquid.

Baby Shower Cake June 17, 2008

This is the 3rd time I have tried to update this post, I may end up moving my blog if I don’t start having better luck with pictures.

Here is the cake mentioned in the last post:

Cherry Limeade Cupcakes May 11, 2008

I discovered the recipe for Cherry Limeade Cupcakes on Never Bashful with Butter.  I figured after my last two chocolate disasters, it was time to try something different. 

I am happy to say that these turned out awesome!  They were tasty and not too difficult to make.  These would be perfect to take to a summer picnic!